Theater maker, music composer and video artist
Lives & works in Ghent, Belgium
Lives & works in Ghent, Belgium
Jaha Koo (he/him) is a South Korean theatre and performance maker, music composer and video artist who lives and works in Ghent, Belgium. His artistic practice oscillates between multimedia and performance, bringing together his own music, video, text and robotic performers or objects on stage.
He is known for the Hamartia Trilogy — Lolling and Rolling (2015), Cuckoo (2017) and The History of Korean Western Theatre (2020) — a long-term exploration of the political landscape, colonial history and cultural identity of East Asia. The trilogy addresses structural issues in Korean society and examines how an inescapable past continues to shape the present.
His most recent work, Haribo Kimchi, premiered in June 2024 at Tangente St. Pölten in Austria and is currently touring internationally. He is now developing a new creation, Born to be K to be POP, scheduled to premiere in early summer 2027.
Koo studied Theatre Studies at Korea National University of Arts (BFA, 2011) and completed his MA at DAS Theatre 2016. He is an associate artist of LOD muziektheater, Theater Utrecht, CAMPO and Seoul Performing Arts Festival.
Photo: Bea Borgers
Photo: Bea Borgers
